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Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Just a Splendidly Sunny Wednesday

This morning I woke up with the idea that since today was not going to be a no spend then I should get out the house as quick as possible and treat myself with a stop at the McD's drive thru for some coffee and a $1 sausage mcmuffin on my way to work. I know, silly. Right? That little "treat" would have cost around $3.65, maybe closer to $4 (I don't know the exact total) And honestly $3.65 is a lot of money for a coffee and breakfast sandwich when the alternative is brewing a cup at home and grabbing a nutri-grain bar on my way out of the house; probably around $1 if not less on the cost for that.

I was hoping to spend around $35 on groceries today. I ended up spending $45.44. I didn't buy anything crazy but there were several items that we needed that I just couldn't manage to put back in order to get the total down. If I had spent the $3.65 at McD's this morning (which I didn't) then I'd be almost $15 over my planned budget for today. $15 is a lot of money. In summary I did the wise thing this morning, did not stop at McD's for a treat, and am very happy and proud of myself for sticking to it.

Now I've a huge freshly made, from scratch, pot of chicken and dumplings soup waiting to be eaten. I had some cilantro left in the fridge from the pulled pork chili I made a while back. The dumplings recipe calls for chopped parsley (which I've never added before, even so). I thought I'd substitute the cilantro for the parsley. Well, let me tell you that was not an un-wise decision. This is by far the yummiest pot of chicken and dumplings soup I've made yet! And now that you have all been filled in about my dinner I will leave you be and go eat my soup while reading my St. Patrick book (for about the billionth time; I read it every March).

4 comments:

Great job!!! It is hard when you want the instant gratification (which I am FAMOUS for), but when we can look ahead and work toward improving our future, it is those little victories that help us move on!

In the big picture, is $4 really going to make or break us, no, but if we give that up even once a week for a year, that is over $200 - to me that is a huge deal!

I know just what you mean - if the day won't be a "perfect" no spend, what's the point of trying? But you have a very good scheme - as well as recording your no-spends, you also record your average daily spend for the month so you give yourself an extra balance. Brilliant

Recording the average daily spending actually works really well to keep me on track. It's a lot like the baby step model for progress; I really need small daily reminders to keep me focused. An average daily spending does that for me, definitely.